Over a thousand trees were uprooted by the Civil Administration at the Nahalat Chen olive grove near Shilo on Wednesday, with a right-wing MK reporting a police officer sexually assaulted her at the scene.
The evacuation is the third order carried out in the past month under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Sunday, Border Police evacuated an outpost called Gofna in the Binyamin region of the West Bank. The outpost was established on Saturday night after six families and dozens of youths set up structures at the site.
Last month, forces evacuated the Or Haim outpost in Samaria, sparking outrage from members of the Religious Zionist Party, who boycotted a cabinet meeting shortly afterward.
Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech and RZP MK Zvi Sukkot arrived at the site in an attempt to prevent the demolition shortly after the first round of the evacuation began.
Son Har-Melech called the uprooting “a shameful, anti-Zionist and anti-moral destruction that is being carried out following a High Court ruling based on a ‘disruptive use order’ – a draconian order that is applied only against Jews.”
Videos showed the MK surrounded by Border Police officers, and when the person filming complained that they were infringing on her parliamentary immunity, they responded that the MK was “at risk.”
In an interview with KAN, Son Har-Melech stated that when she tried to get out of the circle of Border Police officers, one of them sexually assaulted her, and that afterward the commander at the scene accused her of beating one of the officers.
“I am ashamed to describe what happened in this circle. In our terms, it is called sexual assault. The officers need to be punished for what they did,” said Son Har-Melech.
Border Police commander Amir Cohen said in response that “as representatives of the law, we are careful to protect the status and immunity of MKs in accordance with the law. The Border Police is a law-abiding and law-enforcing force. We will not allow anyone to turn the Border Police into a punching bag and to conduct a harmful discourse which could damage the operational and professional response that the officers of the force have required for 70 years.”
The Civil Administration and Border Police arrived at the site with demolition vehicles as hundreds of settlers and high school students tied themselves to trees to prevent the demolition.
Videos from the scene showed Border Police officers clashing with protesters, striking and dragging them away. At least five were arrested.
Settlers decry government action
Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech and RZP MK Zvi Sukkot arrived at the site in an attempt to prevent the demolition shortly after the first round of the evacuation began.
Son Har-Melech attacked the decision to uproot the olive grove, saying "This is a shameful, anti-Zionist and anti-moral destruction that is being carried out following a High Court ruling based on a 'disruptive use order' – a draconian order that is applied only against Jews."
"This is a shameful, anti-Zionist and anti-moral destruction that is being carried out following a High Court ruling based on a 'disruptive use order' – a draconian order that is applied only against Jews."
Limor Son Har-Melech
Son Har-Melech called the uprooting “a shameful, anti-Zionist and anti-moral destruction that is being carried out following a High Court ruling based on a ‘disruptive use order’ – a draconian order that is applied only against Jews.”
Videos showed the MK surrounded by Border Police officers, and when the person filming complained that they were infringing on her parliamentary immunity, they responded that the MK was “at risk.”
עקירת המטעים בבנימין: שוטרי מג"ב חסמו בגופם את ח"כ לימור סון הר מלך | כל הפרטים >>> https://t.co/qMAXB4AwOv@carmeldangor pic.twitter.com/UvVLU0UNZZ
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) February 15, 2023
In an interview with KAN, Son Har-Melech stated that when she tried to get out of the circle of Border Police officers, one of them sexually assaulted her, and that afterward the commander at the scene accused her of beating one of the officers.
“I am ashamed to describe what happened in this circle. In our terms, it is called sexual assault. The officers need to be punished for what they did,” said Son Har-Melech.
"I am ashamed to describe what happened in this ring. In our terms, it is called sexual assault. The officers need to be punished for what they did."
Limor Son Har-Melech
Footage from the scene showed police officers dragging protesters away and a protester being pushed to the ground and punched by officers.
The Jerusalem Post visited the scene after the first round of demolitions and shortly before Border Police officers returned to the site to complete the destruction.
One of the protesters, Solomon, said: “I said to myself, I won’t interfere or anything as long as I don’t see anything problematic. I don’t want to cause any problems. I saw some kids who started to get into an argument with a couple of Border Police officers. I saw a kid around the age of five. Border Police officers began to approach him in a threatening way. I said to myself, there’s no way I can stand to the side and watch this happen.”
He added that as soon as he got near he was told to go away. When he turned to leave, a police officer grabbed his hand and said “are you disrupting officers?” before grabbing him by the throat and dragging him to the side.
“I told them ‘I’m not disrupting. I’m not fighting with you. I’m not trying to stop you from taking me, but can you just relax the grip on my throat?’ He choked me harder and brought me to the officer above them. I told him that they took me for no reason, they beat me. The officer told them ‘don’t put him in the bus, throw him like an animal.’ They eventually let me go after other people intervened.
“My conclusion from all this is that I, an 18-year-old boy, I could be doing nothing, just standing somewhere, a police officer can decide that I’m disrupting him. He’s doing something not okay and I try to film him, he can just come and break my bones and take me and place a criminal file on me that will stay with me my entire life. My conclusion from this is that I do not live in a democracy, I live in a place in which any person wearing a uniform can come and destroy us. My rights are not rights, anyone can come and kill me. It pains me that the people of Israel allow this to happen and I hope something is done about it.”
Solomon also expressed frustration with the politicians in the government, saying “I knew from the beginning it would be like this. I didn’t vote for them, I’m not one of those who followed them. I voted for a guy who I believed would do everything for me because that is what he has done until now. I don’t vote for people who come and speak and after demolitions and say ‘we’ll do such and such’ but don’t do anything. I vote for people who act.”
One of the sons of Chen Ben Eliyahu, who planted the olive grove, said that he “grew up here, I planted the trees here, I worked the land. This is our home, our place.”
The young man added that he hoped to live at the site in the coming days, since the injunction issued by the prime minister (which was still in effect at the time) would prevent the authorities from trying to remove him.
“The people of Israel have had a strong connection to the land for thousands of years. We will plant new trees. Every end is a new beginning,” he added.
“The most insane idea is to uproot a tree, because it gives us oxygen, which we can’t live without. They’ve ruined that. It doesn’t matter if the tree belongs to a Jew or an Arab, where he lives or how he looks.”
He added that his mother called Religious Zionist Party MK Orit Struck and ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, but “they, of course, did not come.”
The grove case began in 2007, when Ben Eliyahu and the Eretz Zeit Shemen Muvchar company began working on three plots in the area. A year later, Palestinians who own land in the area claimed that they were infringing on their property.
The Civil Administration requested that Ben Eliyahu and the company provide documents proving property rights.
Ben Eliyahu and the Eretz Zeit Shemen Muvchar company both argued that they had bought the land from Boaz Malat, a farmer who worked the land for over a decade, acquiring the rights to the land in accordance with Section 78 of the Ottoman Land Law. It states that “Everyone who has possessed and cultivated state... land for 10 years without dispute acquires a right by prescription and whether he has a valid title-deed or not the land cannot be regarded as vacant, and he shall be given a new title-deed gratuitously.”
The head of the Civil Administration at the time rejected the claim, stating that the company had failed to demonstrate with documentation that Malat had actually worked the land for the stated period or that Malat was tied to the company or Ben Eliyahu in a way that would justify combining the time the land was worked by all three of them. The administration added that aerial photos of the land showed “unequivocally” that it was only cultivated in 2007.
After studying the claims of both sides, the administration issued evacuation orders for the three plots of land in question.
The case was brought to an appeals committee that rejected the settlers’ claims concerning the parts of the land worked by the company, but recommended that the Civil Administration accept the claims concerning the land worked by Ben Eliyahu as he had begun working the land long enough before the evacuation order was issued – a Disruptive Land-Use Order. The Civil Administration decided in 2015 to reject the recommendation of the committee and did not withdraw the evacuation order against Ben Eliyahu.
In 2021, The Supreme Court ruled that it could not interfere here in decisions made by the Civil Administration and that the evacuation orders should be carried out by October 2021. The court stressed as well that it was not making a ruling concerning ownership, only on the jurisdiction of the legal decision made.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) stated on Wednesday that security forces began evacuating the plot since it was invaded by settlers illegally and without approval.
COGAT added that Ben Eliyahu promised the Supreme Court and regional authorities that he would independently vacate the plot by February 1, but did not.
In light of the reports and footage from the evacuation, the commander of the Border Police ordered an investigation into the situation by the deputy commander of Border Police in Judea and Samaria.
After the evacuation began, Smotrich sent a letter to Netanyahu demanding it be frozen immediately, insisting that since he is serving as a minister in the Defense Ministry in charge of COGAT and the Civil Administration, he had ordered the cancellation of the evacuation order issued against Ben Eliyahu.
“To my astonishment, Defense Minister [Yoav Gallant] grossly violated the coalition agreement and reversed my decision,” wrote Smotrich. “And, instead of implementing a settlement security policy, Gallant chose to continue the left-wing policy of former minister Benny Gantz and uproot the grove even though the claims against the grove were proven to be false in the legal proceedings.”
Smotrich warned that “violation of the agreements will make it very difficult for the government and the coalition to conduct themselves properly.”
“A full-steam-ahead right-wing government does not destroy thousands of trees that were planted properly just for the sake of destroying,” said the Ben Eliyahu family on Wednesday. “This act is immoral and illegal, and the most painful thing is that our Arab enemies see it, and receive a greater push to continue terror against Jews.”
Ben-Gvir demanded on Tuesday that Gallant delay the destruction of the grove, but Gallant did not. He demanded the same of Netanyahu on Wednesday.
He argued that Gallant is using Border Police for this, despite coalition agreements stating that Border Police were supposed to be transferred to the National Security Ministry that he runs. Ben-Gvir additionally referred to the actions of Border Police officers against Son Har-Melech, stating that “precisely this conduct proves how important it is that the Judea and Samaria Border Police move to the National Security Ministry.”
Ben-Gvir released a video with Son Har-Melech, stating that his party joined the government based on the promise that it would be “a fully right-wing government. A government such as this should not have failed to evacuate Khan al-Ahmar because of diplomatic considerations and shouldn’t hold back from touching buildings in east Jerusalem.”
He said the attack on her was “shocking.”